Socially Responsible Investment Review March 2024

Biodiversity

Thinking around the Climate Emergency and our responsibility to the wider environment has grown in the last few years. Biodiversity has become a focus for investors, with the launch of Nature Action 100 at COP15 in December 2022, and prior to that the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) in July 2021. Epworth are signatories to the

Nature Action 100 with three focus companies and will engage with the purpose to reduce the impact of their operations on nature by 2030, through setting specific targets and disclosing annually against them. This builds on the engagement work we have already undertaken with a number of investee companies such as MJ Gleeson and Anglo American on this topic to date.

Tax Justice

Epworth is continuing their engagement with investee companies on the topic of tax justice, promoting the right payment of tax in the right jurisdiction at the right time. Epworth engaged with six new UK companies during the year, as well as following up with two non-responding companies. Epworth has begun an engagement program with its European holdings on the topic of tax transparency. As the Fair Tax Mark has broadened its offering to apply to global companies, Epworth has followed suit and written to seven European headquartered companies.

HSBC

Epworth attended a meeting with the Chief Sustainability Officer of HSBC to learn more about their net zero approach. Given the work undertaken by Andrew Harper to call out HSBC on their coverage of emissions, this was a helpful meeting to further understand the nuance of the financed and facilitated emissions of the bank.

Core portfolio aligned with Epworth’s ethical pillars

Epworth has begun a project to create a universe of core stocks that align with Epworth’s ethical pillars. The project will centre on identifying which of the world’s biggest listed companies can be tied to our pillars, which in addition to helping us achieve our ethical goals, can also help us to continue providing diversified investment portfolios.

Nestlé

Nestlé is subject to a shareholder resolution calling on the company to set time bound targets for increasing the proportion of its sales of healthy products. Epworth has pre-declared its position to vote for the resolution at the company AGM in April. Rev Dr Andrew Harper gave this quote:

“The world is facing a public health emergency stemming from the lack of nutritious food available easily and affordably. Over the past three decades, rates of obesity in children have increased fourfold.

As the world’s largest and most diversified food and beverages company, Nestlé has a clear responsibility to fight this health epidemic, and we believe its published strategy to date does not go far enough. Therefore, we wholeheartedly support this resolution and encourage the company to be braver in its product evolution for the good of both its shareholders and its customers.”

Nestlé has pushed back publicly on the resolution, stating that investors are targeting the wrong company as they already release data on the health composition on their portfolio. They go on to add that it wouldn’t be good for the company to set targets that limit sales of certain products as this would leave room for competitors, providing no public health benefit.

Socially Responsible Investment Review December 2023

Mining and Faith

The CFB attended the 10th annual Mining & Faith Reflections Initiative (MFRI) conference, a gathering of senior leaders from the mining industry and faith institutions. This is a unique engagement opportunity only open to faith based organisations such as the CFB, with participants ranging from the chief executive of multi-national mining company BHP Group, through to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The CFB took the opportunity to congratulate companies such as Anglo American that have responded positively to the efforts of this initiative since its launch, including the notable improvements in mining site safety and company transparency. However, all participants agreed there was much more work to be done to further improve the activities and reputation of the mining industry for all stakeholders, particularly highlighted by the recent cases of human rights abuses of minority groups at mining sites. The CFB used the conference to put pressure on companies to turn their positive dialogue into further action, noting their vital importance to the energy transition, and the unique operational challenges inherent in this sector.

Property Income Trust for Charities

The CFB met with the management of PITCH during the quarter, a fund that continues to be utilised to provide exposure to unlisted commercial property assets within the CFB Property Fund. As well as discussing portfolio changes, performance and the investment outlook, the CFB took the opportunity to learn more about how the fund has improved its client data collection in order to better report its progress against net zero emission targets. This progress on has helped the fund move into the top 5 of the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, out of a universe of over 100 funds. The CFB is keen to see that progress continue, and took the opportunity to question the fund managers on their approach to material sourcing in their building renovations, particularly focusing on the human rights issues prevalent in the supply chain for solar panels.